Poems by William Ernest Henley Part 19

IV

It came with the threat of a waning moon And the wail of an ebbing tide, But many a woman has lived for less, And many a man has died; For life upon life took hold and pa.s.sed, Strong in a fate set free, Out of the deep into the dark On for the years to be.

Between the gloom of a waning moon And the song of an ebbing tide, Chance upon chance of love and death Took wing for the world so wide.

O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land, Wave out of wave of the sea And who shall reckon what lives may live In the life that we bade to be?

V

Why, my heart, do we love her so?

(Geraldine, Geraldine!) Why does the great sea ebb and flow? - Why does the round world spin?

Geraldine, Geraldine, Bid me my life renew: What is it worth unless I win, Love--love and you?

Why, my heart, when we speak her name (Geraldine, Geraldine!) Throbs the word like a flinging flame? - Why does the Spring begin?

Geraldine, Geraldine, Bid me indeed to be: Open your heart, and take us in, Love--love and me.

VI

One with the ruined sunset, The strange forsaken sands, What is it waits, and wanders, And signs with desparate hands?

What is it calls in the twilight - Calls as its chance were vain?

The cry of a gull sent seaward Or the voice of an ancient pain?

The red ghost of the sunset, It walks them as its own, These dreary and desolate reaches . . .

But O, that it walked alone!

VII

There's a regret So grinding, so immitigably sad, Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . .

Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due, Till there seems naught so despicable as you In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie About the beach of Time, till by and by Death, that derides you too -

Death, as he goes His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray, With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way; And then--and then, who knows

But the kind Grave Turns on you, and you feel the convict Worm, In that black bridewell working out his term, Hanker and grope and crave?

'Poor fool that might - That might, yet would not, dared not, let this be, Think of it, here and thus made over to me In the implacable night!'

And writhing, fain And like a triumphing lover, he shall take His fill where no high memory lives to make His obscene victory vain.

VIII--To A. J. H.

Time and the Earth - The old Father and Mother - Their teeming accomplished, Their purpose fulfilled, Close with a smile For a moment of kindness, Ere for the winter They settle to sleep.

Failing yet gracious, Slow pacing, soon homing, A patriarch that strolls Through the tents of his children, The Sun, as he journeys His round on the lower Ascents of the blue, Washes the roofs And the hillsides with clarity; Charms the dark pools Till they break into pictures; Scatters magnificent Alms to the beggar trees; Touches the mist-folk, That crowd to his escort, Into translucencies Radiant and ravis.h.i.+ng: As with the visible Spirit of Summer Gloriously vaporised, Visioned in gold!

Love, though the fallen leaf Mark, and the fleeting light And the loud, loitering Footfall of darkness Sign to the heart Of the pa.s.sage of destiny, Here is the ghost Of a summer that lived for us, Here is a promise Of summers to be.

IX

'As like the Woman as you can' - (Thus the New Adam was beguiled) - 'So shall you touch the Perfect Man' - (G.o.d in the Garden heard and smiled).

'Your father perished with his day: 'A clot of pa.s.sions fierce and blind, 'He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way: 'Your muscles, Child, must be of mind.

'The Brute that lurks and irks within, 'How, till you have him gagged and bound, 'Escape the foullest form of Sin?'

(G.o.d in the Garden laughed and frowned).

'So vile, so rank, the b.e.s.t.i.a.l mood 'In which the race is bid to be, 'It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood: 'Live, therefore, you, for Purity!

'Take for your mate no gallant croup, 'No girl all grace and natural will: 'To work her mission were to stoop, 'Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill.

'Choose one of whom your grosser make' - (G.o.d in the Garden laughed outright) - 'The true refining touch may take, 'Till both attain to Life's last height.

'There, equal, purged of soul and sense.

'Beneficent, high-thinking, just, 'Beyond the appeal of Violence, 'Incapable of common l.u.s.t, 'In mental Marriage still prevail' - (G.o.d in the Garden hid His face) - 'Till you achieve that Female-Male 'In Which shall culminate the race.'

X

Midsummer midnight skies, Midsummer midnight influences and airs, The s.h.i.+ning, sensitive silver of the sea Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn; And all so solemnly still I seem to hear The breathing of Life and Death, The secular Accomplices, Renewing the visible miracle of the world.

The wistful stars s.h.i.+ne like good memories. The young morning wind Blows full of unforgotten hours As over a region of roses. Life and Death Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical, Troubled yet comforting, thrills As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart Of the wood's dark wonderment Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks With exquisite visitants: Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires With living looks intolerable, regrets Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been - Beautiful, miserable, distraught - The Law no man may baffle denied and slew.